


All Dogs Go

by slythwolf



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 20:51:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/141605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slythwolf/pseuds/slythwolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They really, really do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Dogs Go

**Author's Note:**

> Shades of Discworld and _What Dreams May Come_. This is my feeble attempt at closure, at curing the sadness which beset me after What Happened In Chapter Thirty-Five. I hope it helps others as well.
> 
> Dedication: For my grandparents, believe it or not. Wherever you are, Grandma and Grandpa, I hope it snows as often as it rains, which is of course whenever you want and never when you don't.

It's somewhat unsettling, seeing his body lying there, no longer part of him, and the wisp of nothing that is Remus J. Lupin would shiver if he were corporeal but he's not so he doesn't. He runs a hand that shouldn't be there through similarly improbable hair. Things like this hit you quicker if you've dealt with magic all your life, so he knows what's just happened.

He's dead.

AHEM.

Remus sighs. "Evening."

SO, says Death, after a bit of a pause. WHERE TO?

Remus is still staring at his body. He grins suddenly, distantly. "Do you know, I never really thought about it."

WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IN?

It isn't the kind of question he would have expected, if he'd ever thought about the kind of thing Death would ask. He hasn't, so he just pauses and takes the time to think about his answer.

"Hope."

***

When I was young, I met the most beautiful boy in the world on a train.

He had brown hair and amber eyes and the kind of sweet, shy smile that made you want to hug him as tight as you could. He was sitting alone in a compartment, looking out the window, when I found him.

When I asked, he told me his name was Remus Lupin, and I've been in love with him ever since.

***

It's not the way he pictured it, when he bothered to do so; Remus was half-expecting massively fluffy clouds and little blonde angel-children with golden harps. But then, if he'd really thought about it, he would have realised that none of that really made sense.

It's hazy and golden, like morning mist shot all through with sunbeams, and it's soft underfoot where he's standing on what seems to be grass. Perfect grass. He gets the feeling there are trees somewhere, but he doesn't think they're particularly close.

Someone is coming out of the mist, ahead of him and slightly to the right - a smallish woman, it looks like, with dark brown hair and the face is made of all the wrong shapes, but the eyes -

So green.

"Lily?"

"Remus." She smiles, and it shouldn't be, but somehow the smile is the same. "We knew you would come. We've been waiting."

"I knew you would." It's the only thing that kept him going, sometimes. "Why are you - that is, you look so - "

"Different?" She laughs, gold-silver beautiful like a little cloudburst on a spring afternoon. The voice is the same, but better somehow. "Something of a composite. I've been lots of women, in various lives. For some reason the eyes have stayed rather the same."

"Lives? You mean people - Well, of course." He shakes his head. It only makes sense. Death implied that everybody ends up where they expect to. "Are you going to go back?"

"We're not sure," she replies. "James and I don't wish to be separated, of course - we never have. But we thought we might as well wait for Harry, and make a decision after we've been able to spend some actual time with our son - though I suppose he won't be that anymore, when he's here."

"He's going to love this place."

Remus wonders, privately, what will change, now that they're all together again, after everything that's happened. He doesn't think worry is supposed to be included here.

He wonders when they can cut the small talk so he can find out about Sirius.

***

We were always together, the four of us - Remus, James, Peter, and me. And then our number became five, when Lily finally tired of James chasing her and decided to be caught. James, of course, was closer to me than he was to Remus; we were best friends. Remus and I had never been best friends, in the way that James and Lily were not best friends.

I remember when we made love for the first time; it was so beautiful, I saw his soul shining like a rainbow in his eyes.

***

"We missed you, Moony." James is the same as he always was - his hair like a bird's nest, and in a place where capabilities go beyond the physical someone who doesn't know his habit of pushing them up his nose (on the rare occasions when he can't find anything else to do with his hands) might wonder why James still has his glasses. He looks a bit younger than when Remus last saw him. They both do.

Remus smiles; the sadness of it is a habit, not something he really feels. "Not as much as I missed you, Prongs. Glad you've been happy all this time."

James sobers. "Not all of us."

Lily puts a hand on her husband's - but they're not anymore, are they? Not here. Her soulmate's arm, then, for lack of a better word. "Remus," she says, "there are a few things you need to know."

***

Suddenly - in the course of a night, in fact - I was alone again. James and Lily were gone; Peter was a traitor; I was in Azkaban. I'm amazed Remus managed to survive it. I'm still not completely sure I did.

***

"What is it?" says Remus. "Tell me."

"First and foremost," says James, "Sirius is here. But he doesn't think he should be."

"What do you mean?" Remus asks. "Why?"

Lily and James share one of those glances they have, and she gives Remus a little smile. "He's never forgiven himself for leaving you when he did, to fight on alone when you needed him beside you."

Remus closes his eyes. "Daft bastard. It wasn't his fault."

"The thing is," says James, "everyone's supposed to end up where they believe they should, so he should have gone to - the Other Place. But there's a paradox. See, since the two of you love each other so much, it would be as bad as the Other Place for you to be here without him. He's been here all these years, over in Cerberus Street, dragging a little pocket of misery wherever he goes."

"We're very glad you've come," says Lily, "because we strongly suspect you're the only person who can pull him out of this funk."

"Take me to him," says Remus.

***

Twelve empty years I waited for an absolution I thought would never come, fearing I wouldn't even notice if I died. But then, suddenly, I was free, and I found Remus again.

You wouldn't think looking at him would feel the same as it always has. You'd think, after so much time, our feelings for each other would have changed somehow. But they hadn't.

The hardest thing was knowing that I was free, but I could almost never see him.

***

And "funk" isn't exactly what Remus would call it, he decides, as he catches sight of a stricken, panicky Sirius pacing back and forth, back and forth, pausing periodically to slam his fist into a wall or bash his head into a doorjamb. He looks absolutely in the pink of health, perfect as he was the summer after their seventh year, before the world turned upside down and dragged them all under.

He looks like hell.

"Padfoot," says James gently. Sirius whips around, his eyes wild.

***

We moved in together, when Albus reinstated the Order. I volunteered my family's home. Neither of us had anywhere safer to stay, and in any case nothing was better than being with him, so I asked him to move in, and he did.

No matter what was happening outside those walls - or even inside, including Kreacher and my mother - we were as happy as we'd always been. I don't mean to say we've never had our problems, but we've never let them interfere. What we have together has always been enough to move mountains.

But there was, in the end, one mountain we couldn't move. I thought I had failed him at the end, that I should have fought harder. I thought I'd never see him again.

It was euphoric, finding I'd been wrong.

***

It takes them a long time, as far as time exists here, to talk through everything that's happened. It takes Remus a long time to convince Sirius not to blame himself. It doesn't take them any time at all to go back to holding on to each other, looking into each other's eyes the way they always have, trading their secret smiles and jokes as easily as ever. There are worse things than death, after all, and they have both seen them.

Gradually they begin to build a little place of their own, out on the edge of the city, what they imagine the Shack might have looked like in its prime. It snows there as often as it rains, which is of course whenever they want and never when they don't, and there's a little pond at the back with a rope swing and a rowboat. James and Lily come and picnic with them sometimes, passing the years until Harry will arrive.

"I love you, Moony," says Sirius, and solemnly shoves a snowball down the back of Remus's robes.

Remus just laughs, the snow melting gently against his not-skin. He tackles Sirius into a fluffy drift and kisses him breathless.

"I love you too, you daft creature."

***

When I was young, I met the most beautiful boy in the world on a train.

And we were happy ever after, until the end of days.


End file.
